Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to the Central African Republic
The Central African Republic and the Zionist state: Mossad training and Uzis for the Dacko regime, ties with Bokassa, Israeli arms dealers and peacekeeping technology, and a Dubai ports plan reported to Jeffrey Epstein
The Central African Republic (CAR) built close ties with "Israel" soon after independence in 1960. Israeli archive cables show the Mossad training a security unit for President David Dacko, and the shipment of Uzi sub-machine guns to him being authorised in 1963.[1] According to the historian Benyamin Neuberger and the Israeli foreign ministry, the CAR broke off relations in October 1973 and later restored them.[2][3] Since 2015 "Israel" has supplied observation systems to the UN peacekeeping mission there.[4]
Jewish community and religious life
History
No historic Jewish community in the Central African Republic was found in the sources consulted.
The community today
No organised Jewish community was found in the Central African Republic.
How far is it Zionist? There is no Jewish community. The connections on this page are between the two states and Israeli security businesses.
Chabad
- Main article: Chabad-Lubavitch movement
Powerbase does not yet have a page on Chabad in the Central African Republic, and no permanent Chabad centre was found there. The Central African Republic is not among the ten countries with permanent centres under Chabad of Central Africa.[5] The Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States lists no rabbi in the Central African Republic.[6]
Zionist movement and advocacy
No organised Zionist movement was found in the Central African Republic.
Israeli state and commercial ties
Dacko and Bokassa
The Israeli lawyer Eitay Mack, drawing on Israeli foreign ministry files in the Israel State Archives, describes the early relationship:[1]
- In December 1960 the Israeli ambassador in Paris, Walter Eytan, met Dacko in Bangui and reported that an Israeli offer of scholarships had "aroused great excitement". In 1961 he described the CAR as a "primitive (but attractive) state".[1]
- In December 1961 the new ambassador in Bangui, Ephraim Ben-Haim, reported that Dacko supported the Israeli position on the Palestinian refugees and asked "Israel" to cooperate in the diamond industry. Ben-Haim agreed to send the head of Dacko's internal security unit for training in "Israel".[1]
- In February 1962 Dacko met David Kimche, the Mossad's representative for West Africa. They agreed that three or four people from the CAR would attend a course in "Israel" and on their return set up a whole new security service. Israeli officers were to serve under the CAR chief of staff, Jean-Bédel Bokassa.[1]
- In May 1963 the Israeli defence ministry's representative was authorised to send 20 Uzi sub-machine guns, and the Mossad director, Isser Harel, authorised training of a security unit. The ambassador reported that Dacko had told someone in Bangui to "wait for the Uzis".[1]
- Bokassa seized power on 31 December 1965. Mack writes that he was "a staunch admirer of the State of Israel" and wanted Israeli military support. After the Six-Day War in June 1967 the ambassador, Aharon Ofri, reported that Bokassa "was actually in tears" and gave 100,000 francs.[1]
- The coup worried some Israeli officials. In February 1966 an Israeli embassy official in Bangui argued for separating sovereign security aid from "personal security assistance to the President, which connects and identifies us with unstable presidents".[1] The historian Zach Levey writes that the January 1966 coups in the CAR and Nigeria "heightened the Foreign Ministry's skepticism" about civilian and military aid to African states.[7]
Diplomacy
- The CAR broke off relations on 21 October 1973, during the Yom Kippur War. The Israeli political scientist Benyamin Neuberger lists it among the states that restored ties in the 1980s.[2] In 2011 the Israeli foreign ministry gave the status of relations as "Renewal" in January 1991, with the CAR covered by the ambassador in Cameroon.[3]
- On 17 March 2025 the Israeli ambassador, Amnon Kalmar, who is resident in Yaoundé, presented his credentials to President Faustin-Archange Touadéra in Bangui.[8]
Security and business
- The French think tank Ifri says the former Israeli air force lieutenant-colonel Gaby Peretz has sold military equipment to West and Central African governments since the 1980s through his company AD Consultants, and that the CAR is among the states he has mainly supplied.[9]
- A 2011 paper from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) says "an Israeli company offered intelligence equipment to the Central African Republic in 2010".[10]
- In November 2017 the UN extended an Israeli technology project for its peacekeeping mission, MINUSCA. The UN said: "Since 2015, Israel has contributed both static and mobile observation systems to MINUSCA", and thanked the Israeli government for its "continued support".[4]
- In 2017 Jeune Afrique reported that the Israeli company Nikuv International Projects (NIP) hoped to win a large contract for digitising and producing administrative documents in the CAR.[11] The previous year a Tel Aviv court had convicted the company of bribing an official in Lesotho.[12]
Arms
SIPRI's arms transfers database records no Israeli deliveries of major weapons to the Central African Republic.[13]
Trade
The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics does not list the Central African Republic separately in its main table of trade by country. The Central African Republic falls under "Other Countries".[14]
Migration and aliyah
The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics does not list the Central African Republic separately in its table of immigrants by country of birth.[15]
Political interference
UN voting
The Central African Republic did not vote on the General Assembly's endorsement of the New York Declaration on a two-state solution in September 2025.[16]
Jeffrey Epstein
- On 24 October 2014 Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, chairman of DP World, wrote to Jeffrey Epstein from Mombasa that he had had a three-hour meeting with President Uhuru Kenyatta and that they were going to build "a big logistic park" to serve Kenya, South Sudan, Uganda, the Central African Republic and Rwanda.[17] In February 2026 DP World replaced bin Sulayem after his ties to Epstein were revealed in the files.[18]
- The CAR also appears in news digests from the office of Terje Rød-Larsen, president of the International Peace Institute, found in Epstein's files. One, from January 2014, reproduced an article on European backing for the French intervention in "the failed state known as the Central African Republic".[19] The institute's Regional Insights for March 2014, described as "provided exclusively to major donors and members", covered the UN Secretary-General's plan for the CAR.[20] Rød-Larsen resigned in 2020 over donations from foundations linked to Epstein and a personal loan from Epstein.[21]
See also
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Cameroon
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Chad
- Mossad
- Jewish, Zionist and Israeli connections to Lesotho
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Eitay Mack, 'Wait for the Uzi's' — Israeli relations in 60s with MLK and African leaders were hardly idealistic, despite nostalgia Mondoweiss, 21 July 2020.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Benyamin Neuberger, Israel's Relations with the Third World (1948–2008) S. Daniel Abraham Center for International and Regional Studies, Tel Aviv University, October 2009.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Diplomatic Missions Abroad: Status of relations mfa.gov.il, archived 5 August 2011.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 UN Approves Expansion of Israeli Project Bolstering Security of Peacekeeping Force in Central African Republic The Algemeiner, 15 November 2017.
- ↑ Shloimy Galperin, Getting Central Africa's Rabbis Into One Room Isn't Easy Chabad.org, 10 June 2026.
- ↑ Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States, The Rabbis rabbisalliance.org, accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ Zach Levey, Israel's Strategy in Africa, 1961–67 International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 36, no. 1, February 2004, pp. 71–87.
- ↑ Embassy of Israel in Cameroon, Ambassador of the Embassy of Israel to the Central African Republic present his letter of credence to president of the Central African Republic embassies.gov.il, March 2025.
- ↑ Benjamin Augé, Israel-Africa Relations: What Can We Learn from the Netanyahu Decade? Études de l'Ifri, Ifri, November 2020.
- ↑ Siemon T. Wezeman, Israeli Arms Transfers to Sub-Saharan Africa SIPRI Background Paper, October 2011.
- ↑ Centrafrique : qui se cache derrière l'entreprise NIP ? Jeune Afrique, 24 March 2017.
- ↑ In first, Israeli company convicted of bribing foreign official The Times of Israel, 15 December 2016.
- ↑ Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI Arms Transfers Database SIPRI, accessed 20 October 2026.
- ↑ Central Bureau of Statistics (Israel), Foreign Trade Statistics Monthly, Table D1: Trade Countries – Imports and Exports CBS, December 2025 issue (library copy).
- ↑ Central Bureau of Statistics (Israel), Statistical Abstract of Israel 2024, Table 2.55: Immigrants, by period of immigration, country of birth and last country of residence CBS, 2024.
- ↑ United Nations General Assembly, Recorded vote on A/80/L.1/Rev.1: Endorsement of the New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution, 12 September 2025 (copy hosted by Al-Quds Al-Arabi).
- ↑ Sultan Bin Sulayem, email to Jeffrey Epstein, "Kenya", 24 October 2014, DOJ Epstein Files release (Dataset 11), EFTA02339105 (mirror), accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ Jacob Rosen and Sophia Vlahakis, CEO of Dubai's largest port replaced after ties to Epstein revealed CBS News, 13 February 2026.
- ↑ Office of Terje Rød-Larsen, "January 22 update", news digest, 23 January 2014, DOJ Epstein Files release (Dataset 9), EFTA00651248 (mirror), accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ Office of Terje Rød-Larsen, "IPI Regional Insights - March 2014", 20 March 2014, DOJ Epstein Files release (Dataset 9), EFTA00986356 (mirror), accessed 21 October 2026.
- ↑ International Peace Institute, Statement by the Board of the International Peace Institute: Resignation of President Terje Rød-Larsen, 29 October 2020.